Energy Department budget includes $325 million for Yucca Mountain

Friday, Feb. 7, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

The funding is $14 million less than the Energy Department requested last year.

DOE funding also calls for money to conduct four weapons experiments at the Nevada Test Site.

The nuclear waste budget faces an uncertain fate in Congress where efforts are under way to designate Nevada for interim as well as permanent nuclear waste storage. Clinton's budget does not include any money for interim storage, and his threat to veto such legislation led to a stormy Senate hearing on Wednesday.

The president's budget also does not include any money for the department to begin receiving radioactive waste from nuclear power plants next January, as a federal court has ordered.

As it did last year, the department included $4.8 million for the state of Nevada and $6.1 million for counties surrounding Yucca Mountain to oversee the department's studies. Congress rejected a similar request last year.

Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site being studied for the nation's permanent nuclear waste dump.

The Yucca project takes up 85 percent of the president's nuclear waste budget, which totals $380 million. Other items in the budget include transportation activities, quality assurance programs and salaries.

Overall, the nuclear waste budget is $2 million less than Congress approved last year.

Lake Barrett, acting director of the civilian nuclear waste program, said he did not anticipate any layoffs at Yucca Mountain in 1998 because the budget will be virtually the same as this year.

The Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, would receive $220 million for weapons activities in 1998, including four subcritical experiments. The tests, which scientists say will not cause nuclear explosions or chain reactions, are part of the department's stockpile stewardship program to maintain the safety and reliability of the nation's nuclear arsenal.